NCHENZ

Testing your student

Parents are not required to test homeschooled students, and most don’t feel the need to. The main reason for testing at school is to identify which areas the student has achieved at or needs to work on, and a parent is invariably very familiar with their own child’s achievements.

However there are other reasons some parents may want to test, because it is part of their academic programme, because their student loves a challenge, to check or to reassure anxious relatives of where their student’s level of achievement is in relation to national averages.

For parents who want to use testing here are 3 recognised options

asTTle testing yrs 4-12

asTTle stands for Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (He Pûnaha Aromatawai mô te Whakaako me te Ako). It is an educational resource for assessing literacy and numeracy (in both English and Mâori) developed for the Ministry of Education by the University of Auckland.
asTTle provides teachers, students, and parents with information about a student's level of achievement, relative to the curriculum achievement outcomes, for levels 2 to 6 and national norms of performance for students in years 4 to 12.
asTTle is a tool that operates in both personal computer (PC) and Mac environments. Teachers can use asTTle to create 40-minute paper and pencil tests designed for their own students' learning needs. Once the tests are
scored, the asTTle tool generates interactive graphic reports that allow teachers to anayse student achievement against curriculum levels, curriculum objectives, and population norms. Research and development over 2003-2004 has extended asTTle into years 8-12 and curriculum levels 5-6.
The asTTle website http://www.asttle.org.nz  contains a range of tutorials that about how to use asTTle, which can be accessed free of charge. asTTle is being moved to a web-based version of the assessment tool. This should be available in 2008.

PAT tests yrs 3-10

A registered teacher can purchase these tests from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) website www.nzcer.org.nz at any time, cost about $10 each. They have to be administered by a trained teacher and in the month of March.

Some homeschooling parents who are registered teachers will take students for testing – ask your regional networking group who offers this in your area.

PATs can also be obtained from Alan Curnow in Nelson. He also has a variety of unit studies available. He supplies and marks the tests which can include a percentile ranking. These tests being by correspondence are not done under exam conditions so give a ballpark gauge only. Costs about $10 per test plus postage

Alan Curnow
200 Hill St, Richmond 7020
aclc@quicksilver.net.nz
Ph 03 544-7728

University of NSW exams yrs 4-13

www.eaa.unsw.edu.au You will need to register yourself as a “school”by sending them a copy of your child’s exemption form. The customer service department are familiar with homeschooling, and very helpful.Exams are for yrs 4-13 in English, writing, maths, science and computer skills. Cost $6.50 - $13 per exam.

For test dates, entry fees, duration and formats, go to (home page, teachers and schools, what are the test dates, your country).

A lot of Australian kids sit these exams, but only a few NZ kids. The competition is tough! The results are percentile rankings rather than raw scores, so a child is doing well to get above 50 percentile in this top group of kids. The exams are usually only about 45-60 minutes and must be supervised by a non family member.

You need to register early in the first term and exams are spread between April and June. Results come between July and September.

For past papers go to (home page, students and parents, how can I buy past ICAS papers)

It is recommended that everyone do test runs with these as preparation. These papers are only $5 each.

Contact - info@eaa.unsw.edu.au
Customer Services,
Schools Competitions Administration,
Education Assessment Australia,
The University of New South Wales.
P.O.Box 8020,
Alexandria NSW 2015,
Australia.
Phone 0800 778 010 for assistance
Fax no. 02 8344 1030.

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